A Brief Introduction to Cloud Native Approaches
for Big Data Analysis
by Millie Chapman,
Satellites, smart phones, and other monitoring technologies are creating vast amounts of data about our earth every day. These data hold promise to provide global insights on everything from biodiversity patterns to human activity at increasingly fine spatial and temporal resolution. But leveraging this information often requires us to work with data that is too big to fit in our computer's "working memory" (RAM) or even to download to our computer's hard drive. In this post, I walk through tools, terms, and examples to get started with cloud native workflows. These workflows allow us to remotely access and query large data from online resources or web services, all while skipping the download step!
- D-Lab Data Science for Social Justice
Summer Workshop -
Hachette v. Internet Archive
In a current Southern District of New York Court case, The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is defending the Internet Archive against a lawsuit that threatens its Controlled Digital Lending (CDL) program.
The Internet Archive is a nonprofit digital library, preserving and providing access to cultural artifacts of all kinds in electronic form. CDL allows people to check out digital copies of books for two weeks or less, and only permits patrons to check out as many copies as the Archive and its partner libraries physically own. Through CDL, the Internet Archive is helping to foster research and learning by helping its patrons access books and by keeping books in circulation when their publishers have lost interest in them.
Four publishers sued the Archive, alleging that CDL violates their copyrights. In their complaint, Hachette, HarperCollins, Wiley, and Penguin Random House claim CDL has cost their companies millions of dollars and is a threat to their businesses.
- D-Lab Data Science for Social Justice
Summer Workshop -
D-Lab Graduate Workshop Empowers Students
to Advance Social Justice in Data Science
D-Lab’s new Data Science for Social Justice Workshop is an 8-week cohort-based online program, which provides a scaffolded, project-based learning environment — designed within a social justice framework — giving current Berkeley graduate students the ability to apply data science skills and tools in their individual fields of study whether they’re coming from public health, education, law, public policy or any discipline across campus.
Applications will be accepted beginning March 1 through April 15, 2023 with decisions released May 15, 2023. The Workshop runs June 12 – August 4, 2023.
A Data Science Journey: Arlyn Moreno Luna's Experience
in the Data Science for Social Justice Workshop
"At first, we read different articles that looked at diversity and equity within data science research. That to me was very eye-opening – how this kind of work that I'm interested in is done in a different setting." Moreno Luna participated in the Data Science + Social Justice Workshop, a summer introductory data science program run by D-Lab and Graduate Division. In this Q+A, she discusses her journey, why she’s interested in data science and how it has expanded the possibilities of her higher education research.
Digital Humanities Working Group
Apr 21 | 12pm-1pm
Hybrid Event | Zoom and In-Person
D-Lab Collaboratory, Social Sciences Building, Room 356
The UC Berkeley Digital Humanities Working Group is a research community founded to facilitate interdisciplinary conversations in the digital humanities and cultural analytics. Our gatherings are participant driven and provide a place for sharing research ideas (including brainstorming new ideas and receiving feedback from others), learning about the intersection of computational methods and humanistic inquiry, and connecting with others working in this space at Berkeley.
The Digital Humanities Working Group is led by David Bamman (School of Information), Stacy Reardon (Literatures and Digital Humanities Librarian), and Tim Tangherlini (Department of Scandinavian) and is sponsored by the Townsend Center for the Humanities.
HTML/CSS Toolkit for Digital Projects
May 3 | 2:10pm-3:30pm | Register here.
"Using the Open Source PolicyEngine Microsimulation Model for Reproducible Analysis of Tax and Benefit Policy
Mar 23 | 9:00am-10:30am
Max Ghenis (PolicyEngine)
The Berkeley Initiative for Transparency in the Social Sciences (BITSS) Open Research Seminar in Spring 2023 will be an opportunity for researchers to showcase applications of specific tools and practices (e.g., developing a lab protocol for reproducibility, building a website to catalog open datasets, etc.) or evaluations of the effectiveness of existing tools and practices (e.g., results-blind peer review and publication bias). All webinars will be recorded, published on the BITSS YouTube channel, and included in the BITSS Resource Library, a publicly available collection of learning materials.
Hybrid Language Models: From Super-Parrots to Human-Like Dialog Understanding
Mar 22 | 2pm-3pm
In-Person | 2150 Shattuck Ave Suite 250
Why is human-like dialog understanding is so difficult for AI? At the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) Colloquium, we discuss various methods for testing the understanding capabilities of dialog systems. We ask whether large language models are super-parrots or a milestone towards human-like dialog understanding and how they relate to what we know about language processing in the human brain. Finally, we present some lessons learnt from our 40 years of research in this field about hybrid system architecture principles: symmetric multimodality, no presentation without representation, and anticipation feedback loops.
Special Projects Associate
at The Center for Effective Global Action
The Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at UC Berkeley is recruiting a Special Projects Associate (SPA) to support the Executive Director, the Center’s flagship Global Networks program, and assist with the development of new CEGA research initiatives. They will additionally support CEGA’s Global Networks team in providing high-quality experiences for research fellows from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
The SPA will support the Executive Director by assisting with various tasks related to background research, knowledge management, the development of new CEGA research initiatives, and other duties as assigned. They will additionally support CEGA’s Global Networks team in providing high-quality experiences for research fellows from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The position requires high attention to detail, excellent written and oral communication skills, and the ability to work independently, flexibly, and effectively under tight deadlines.
Department of Statistics
Hiring for a Pooled Lecturer Position
The Department of Statistics at UC Berkeley invites applications for a pool of qualified temporary instructors to teach the following courses should an opening arise. Screening of applicants is ongoing and will continue as needed. The number of positions varies from semester to semester including summer sessions, depending upon the needs of the Department. General duties include developing syllabi, lecturing, writing assignments, writing and grading exams, supervising teaching assistants, holding office hours, and maintaining a course website. Other duties may be assigned by the Chair as necessary.
Fellowship Program with the
Criminal Justice Administrative Records System
This Criminal Justice Administrative Records System (CJARS) program provides an opportunity to receive support for research that taps into the wealth of criminal justice data held in CJARS and all of the possible data linkage available through the U.S. Census Bureau's Federal Statistical Research Data Center (FSRDC) network.
Summer Fellowships at the NSF
Research Experiences for Undergraduates Fellowships
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers Program (IUCRC)'s Spatiotemporal Innovation Center (STC) is looking for several undergraduate research assistants to serve as NSF REU Fellows for 7-11 weeks from May to September 2023. They will potentially work at the Harvard University site (Cambridge, MA) or the George Mason University site (Fairfax, VA), depending on candidates' choice and funding availability from NSF.
One Tree Planted is a US-based non-profit focused on global reforestation. As an environmental charity, we are dedicated to making it easier for individuals and businesses to give back to the environment, create a healthier climate, protect biodiversity, and help reforestation efforts around the world.
One Tree Planted is seeking a Geospatial Analyst to join our team of passionate conservation professionals in designing, building, and managing innovative geospatial solutions to restore and protect people, nature, and our planet. The successful candidate will work closely with project managers and planting partners to organize, clean, and manage data workflows for new and historic reforestation projects.
Open Position of Forestry Officer - Remote Sensing
with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN
This P-3 Forestry Officer position in Rome requires technical focus to support the development of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) System for Earth Data Access, Processing and Analysis for Land Monitoring (SEPAL) and the broader forest and land use monitoring work of the Forestry Division, while ensuring technical linkage with other FAO teams and partner organizations within the context of FAO's Strategic Framework and in alignment with the Organization's Policy on Gender Equality.
Xlab supports UC Berkeley’s world class research by providing resources such as access to participant pools, experiment coordination, payment support, access to softwares, grants, and more. It also provides technical and administrative support. For more information about Xlab, click here!
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